Sam Rayburn used to say that "if you can't smoke it, drink it, or eat it in twenty-four hours, then don't take it." Now, even in Mr. Sam's days, such personal ethics were not always universally followed, but the leadership set the example. Today, where is such leadership? What will history say about the level of honor and integrity during the Bush Dynasty?
When viewed as a list, the level of corruption in this Republican era is literally stunning. There is an almost incomprehensible multitude of myriad scandals involving alleged malfeasance at the very highest levels of government; the details of each individual matter are difficult to follow, even for the most interested public citizens. The common thread in all this personal corruption seems to be that elected office is merely a place where one can scam the public for personal gain; irrespective of public policy concerns. [Mas palabras abajo].
It should first be stated that the corruption list is in addition to all of the other scandals and scams that the Bush-era Republicans have inflicted on us, including the bald-faced lies that got us into a disastrous never-ending war, the constant smear campaigns against any critic, the shameless flaunting of the rule of law in unprecedented ways, the utter and appalling incompetence as witnessed by the ongoing dearth of a response to the Katrina disaster, the virtually universal abdication of any meaningful oversight by the Republican-dominated Congress, the constant cronyism, the war-mongering, the torture, the warrantless domestic spying, the propagandizing of classified information, the inordinate secrecy and the "go fuck yourself" mentality. Even if all of that wasn't happening (with no end in sight), the corruption is already easily the most significant of any administration in American history.
The list includes the following (and additions are welcome!).
(1) The Chief of Staff to the Vice-President has been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with alleged treason-related activities in the deliberate outing of a covert CIA agent during war-time (the first such indictment of a sitting White House official since Ulysses Grant);
(2) The Deputy Chief of Staff to the President who, until very recently, was the foremost political and domestic public policy advisor to the President, is reportedly about to be indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with the same probe;
(3) The House Majority Leader has been indicted and awaits trial in connection with alleged money laundering which was designed to corruptly influence state elections where corporate campaign funding has been prohibited for over a century; and, after being indicted on charges on which the underlying theory is that he was trying to game the system, he has proceeded to run for re-election and then timely resign in order to game the system;
(4) The Senate Majority Leader is under investigation by the SEC for alleged insider trading and other securities law violations in connection with his ownership and disposition of Hospital Corp. of America securities;
(5) The Chief Domestic Policy Advisor to the President has been arrested on shoplifting charges in which it is alleged that he repeatedly tried to scam numerous retail merchandizers;
(6) The Chief Republican Lobbyist has already pleaded guilty to multiple influence-peddling charges in connection with numerous nefarious activities, including bribery and mail and wire fraud;
(7) The former Republican Governor of Illinois has just been convicted of multiple counts of individual corruption, including scamming campaigns for payments to family members and, most notoriously, being involved in a "bribe-for-license" scheme while Secretary of State that resulted in the death of a Wisconsin family;
(8) The sitting Republican Governor of Kentucky has just been indicted on three counts of corruption;
(9) The Republican Governor of Ohio has previously been indicted on several charges of corruption;
(10) The House Appropriations Chairman is currently under investigation in connection with various allegations involved in the next-described scandal;
(11) An important member of the House Appropriations Committee, particularly the Defense Appropriations SubCommittee, has already pleaded guilty to multiple charges of individual corruption, including bribery, in connection with multiple allegations of "bribes for public contracts" and favorable real property resale prices;
(12) An important Member of the Senate Appropriations and Commerce Committees is also presumably under investigation for close involvement with the lobbyists and contractors involved in the preceding-described scandal;
(13) The Chairman of the House Administration Committee is also under investigation for numerous corruption allegations;
(14) Three Department of Homeland Security officials have been arrested in connection with child internet pornography allegations;
(15) The third-ranking official at the Central Intelligence Agency has just had his home and office raided in connection with a burgeoning multi-agency probe into alleged corruption involved with alleged poker/prostitute parties at the Watergate Hotel with the lobbysists/contractors potentially involved in some of the above-described scandals;
(16) The Vice-President shoots a man; doesn't report the incident until hours later; escapes any meaningful investigation and forces the victim to apologize for getting shot;
(17) Journalists have been demonstrated to have been receiving payments from the administration for favorable stories.
I am stunned by this level of Republican corruption. And many of these stories are just developing and their outcome remains in doubt. How many have gotten away with it? How many will get away with it? What has become of our country?